


The Father Is Not Always The Dad

by AlldaladiesluvLeoHoO_SpidypoolFan



Category: DCU (Comics), Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-11-10
Updated: 2020-11-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:28:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27494974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlldaladiesluvLeoHoO_SpidypoolFan/pseuds/AlldaladiesluvLeoHoO_SpidypoolFan
Kudos: 2





	1. Monsters are worse when they don't disintegrate

**(I was just listening to this song when writing this and thought, 'Why not?' so here you go.)**

**Long chapter ahead**

A woman walked along the crowded streets of New York, one destination in mind as she went, her hair flowing gently behind her in the slight breeze of the approaching autumn. She wore light blue jeans, a white button-up shirt, black boot heels, and a red jacket with a slightly messy pony-tail. She looked so unassuming, yet there was an air of power surrounding her as she walked up to the doors of an apartment building and went inside, heading straight to the 12th floor.

Yet she slowed when she came upon the door she was going to enter. It was open slightly, and this door is never left open. Placing her hand on the door, she gagged when it opened as the strong smell of rotting humanity left the place. But even more so, was shocked onto her knees at the sight of blood on the floor and a man who she didn't know passed out on the couch with a bag of empty beers next to him. And blood on his hands.

Farther into the room, leaning against the wall and the floor, was a woman covered in blood from her left shoulder down the left side of her body, eyes staring at nothing ahead of her. This woman's best friend.

Farther up the hall outside, she heard a person shuffling, so she turned and saw a middle-aged woman, who had many laugh lines across her face. She stood up and approached her, and when she did, the woman turned to her confused. "Call 911." She told her in a hoarse voice, hear throat suddenly feeling dry.

The woman got out her phone and then asked her a question. "What's it for? And what's your name ma'am?"

"My name is Hera Olympia, and it's for my friend." She said and tears started to form in her eyes. She pointed at the door to her friend's apartment before speaking again. "S-she's in there and covered in blood and there's a man in there I don't know whose got blood on his hands and she isn't moving, please! Call 911." Then realization shown on her face and she whispered, "The baby!" before going back over to the door and taking off her loud heels on the way.

Those two words prompted the other woman to call 911 even faster than before, there was a baby in that place.

Hera entered the apartment, ignoring the smell of rotting humanity as she went through the place, careful not to step on the blood or anything else around the room. The man didn't stir as she went. When Hera had made her way to the baby's room, she found the little girl was wide awake in her crib, just looking around her from where she lay, she wasn't old enough to lift the upper half of her body yet. Gently, Hera picked her up and quickly made her way back out of the apartment, the man still now waking up from his alcohol induced sleep.

When she left the apartment, she went up to the woman who had called 911 for her and just stayed there with her back against the wall, rocking the baby girl in her arms slightly. Two hours later, the police had dragged off the man who had killed Sally Jackson, someone named Gabriel Ugliano. And Hera left once the police gave the okay, teleporting herself and the sleeping baby girl to where she knew the child would be safe.

_Clark's POV_

When you're in school and not expecting anything really interesting to happen since it was supposed to be a normal day, then when an office attendant comes in and calls out you by name, you generally are confused and surprised. So when that happened to me and I heard a few of the kids snicker and say 'oooh, he's in trouble', I was instantly nervous as I followed her to the office. What's more, I was told to bring my backpack and we stopped off at my locker to get the rest of my stuff because I wouldn't be going back until Tuesday because of the teacher work days on Friday and Monday was a day for students do whatever they wanted since it was a Step day(A day to work on various elective classes of the student's choosing).

When we got into the office, I was met by a woman holding a blue purse awkwardly as if it was a cat or small dog rather than the purse that it was. It flickered slightly sometimes, but I just chalked that up to me not having gotten sleep last night since the neighbors had gotten a dog that likes to bark. All. Night. Long. Seriously, they were almost three miles from our house, I really hated the super hearing when it was quiet around the house and so I could hear almost everything else happening.

"Clark, this is Hera Olympia, she was sent to collect you and take you home." Mrs. Mannox told me as the woman, Mrs. Olympia stood. I didn't fail to notice her wedding ring.

"Hello." She said, keeping her greeting short.

Mrs. Mannox smiled at her and then spoke. "See you on Monday then, Clark." and Mrs. Olympia looked at me to make sure I was going to follow before she left, me trailing behind her.

"Who are you?" I asked her as we got into her car, a blue Chevy Impala. She just looked at me and started the car before driving off in the direction of my parents and my house. It was during the drive that I noticed she didn't take her hands off of her purse, and it still flickered from a purse to something that I could almost make out, but it never stayed long enough for me to understand what it was that I was seeing.

"To you and your mother and father, I am - well, was - Yuda." She said, and I was paying attention to the purse and almost missed it. When I looked at her, she was saying her name, 'Yuda' and she flickered for a second between how she is now and a different woman all together.

She had bronze hair that went white at the ends with skin dusted many colors of greys and browns and reds, her eyes were as pale white as the moon with dark circles around the irises, a moonstone encrusted thick necklace of what looked like iron but I knew wasn't fitting perfectly to her neck and upper chest, twin bracelets with strange writings appeared on her wrists(Again, made of the not iron stuff), and a circlet with a green glowing stone in the middle adorned her head. The glowing green stone seemed to make me feel weak.

But then the image changed back to how she was before and the weak feeling went away at once.

"Wha-" I said, unsure if what I just saw was real. She gave me a soft and reassuring smile.

"As long as you only think of me as Hera, you'll be fine. It can be a little hectic for the both of us otherwise." She told me, a warning in her voice, but a warning out of some kind of fear. With those words, the ride was silent until we got to my house. Ma and Pop came to see who was driving up to the house, it was clear now that they didn't call this woman to pick me up.

Hera just parked the car and got out, followed closely by me.

"Clark? Whose this?" Ma asked me. I just looked to Hera and she said, "Inside."

I nodded and went up to Ma, kissed her on the cheek and looked her in the eyes before going inside, the others all followed. I placed my backpack on it's hook by the door and led Hera, Ma, and Pop into the living area and sat down. The others did to, though Hera stayed standing, looking at me.

"So, are ya goin to tell us who ya are, ma'am?" Ma asked her. Hera looked at the three of us.

"I'm Hera." She stated simply and Ma raised her eyebrow.

"Like the Greek goddess, Hera?"

At this, Hera shook her head. "No. Not like. I am she, the very Greek goddess, Hera." She said, and her voice didn't waver, her eyes held no lie, and when I tried to listen for a heartbeat to tell if she was lying or not, I couldn't hear one at all. Looking at her with my extra sight, I found that she had nothing inside her, it nearly blinded me with how bright she was.

"Ha, yeah ma'am, there ain't no such woman." Ma said, not believing it one bit. Pop agreed with Ma. Hera didn't get mad. In fact, she just looked at me, looking as though she knew exactly what I had just done.

"Why don't you just ask him what he just did then." She said, and Ma and Pop both adopted looks of surprise, Ma turning to look at me from where she sat next to me.

"Clark, what did you do?" She asked in a worried tone.

"No, it was nothing dangerous Ma." I assured her, not taking my eyes off of Hera. "I just know that she's telling the truth."

Hera smiled at me as Ma looked between me and Hera. She then said loud and clear, "Hecate, lift your veil from them if you will."

Ma, Pop, and I all looked on in complete shock as the blue purse in Hera's arms transformed into a baby. Or, more accurately, a veil of mist rolled away from the baby in her arms. She walked forward and placed the baby in my arms, and I came out of my shock.

"Wait, why're you giving the baby to me?!" I asked her, not sure what was happening.

"Because you are the best one to protect her. You are not from an Earthly Pantheon as she is, she will never be safer than when she is with you, Clark." She told me, seriousness in her voice, a closed smile on her face.

Those words just got me thinking. Not from an Earthly Pantheon. I had known since that day only at the ending of last school year that I was the answer to if we are alone in the universe. And, so it seems, does this woman, a goddess. Not from an Earthly Pantheon. Does that mean that my people have gods and goddesses? She said that she was Yuda to me and my mother and father, maybe she was talking about my birth parents.

I was cut from my thoughts by Hera falling to her knees with her hands pressed up against her temple. She was flickering like she had been in the car and seemed to be in great pain.

"Stop it. Stop thinking of me in the terms of your people Kal." She told me, looking up at me. Ma and Pop looked between her and me.

"Yuda?" I asked her and she stopped flickering for a few seconds, staying on the image of the other woman. Her eyes looked happy and she smiled and nodded before the flickering resumed.

"Clark, what's happening to her?" Pop asked me.

"Kal El, stop thinking of me in the terms of your people!" Hera said, but I just thought about it more.

"You know who my people are?" I asked her, wanting to know what I can. The other woman came back and smiled and nodded.

"Yes, yes I do know who they were Kal! Oh, it's been so long since I've been thought of as me!" Yuda said excitedly, but then was quickly cut off as she flickered back to Hera, who surprisingly had tears in her eyes.

"Why do you keep calling me Kal?" I asked her, not understanding the name, the sound feeling foreign in my mouth.

"Ever wonder what your birth name was." Hera stated and flickered back to Yuda as I thought of her more as Yuda instead. I could only assume that was why she was able to be Yuda for small chunks of time.

"Oh, you were such a wonderful idea for you mother and father, Kal." Yuda told me, clear admiration in her voice. This time, she didn't turn into Hera again.

"You knew Clark's birth parents?" Ma asked Yuda, subconsciously putting her hand on my arm.

Yuda nodded again, though this time her eyes turned misty. "Yes. I know every married pair of my people and our worshippers. Of course, there haven't been any marriages in a long while. Lara and Jor-El were the best of them, but since their greatest creation was sent away, there has been no need for me. I haven't been myself in over 300 years."

"Wait, you said Jor-El. And called me Kal-El. Would he happen to be one of my ancestors?"

Yuda looked at me and smiled sadly. "He's your father, Kal."

I turned just a little bitter, she had said that his greatest creation was sent away, and as my father, that means that I wasn't up there in his love. Maybe that was why I ended up here.

Yuda shook her head, somehow seeming to know what I was thinking. "No, no. Kal, he loved you, Jor-El and Lara both did. They loved you with everything they had."

"If they loved me so much, why am I here instead of with them? I can't understand, if they loved me, then why did I get sent here in the first place?" I asked her, letting my speculation shine in my words. I chose to ignore Ma and Pop both saying my name in disbelief.

"Kal..." Yuda said, the sadness evident in her tone. "Kal, they did this for you. All of it. You were the greatest creation he and Lara had, and that is why you're here. You're here because of their love for you."

"Wait, you said that there hasn't been need for you since Clark was sent away, and that it's been 300 years. Your saying Clark is that much older than us." Pop asked her incredulously, pointing at me slightly.

"Well, our home planet was 284 light years away. But he passed through the Well of Stars, so no, he isn't physically older than you." She told them.

"You've been usin the past tense this whole time when speakin of his parents and planet. Why?" Ma asked her, and that is when I realized she's right. She has yet to speak of it in present tense.

"The same reason why I haven't been my self in so long, the same reason why Kal is here in the first place. The same reason why in around seven years, another one of those pods will land." Yuda said and a few tears escaped her eyes. "The same reason why you will rarely see another one of our people. Because, our planet no longer exists."

Those words hit me with the force of a freight train. My planet doesn't exist. It's gone.

"What happened to it?" I heard myself ask, my voice staying calm as my inside broke. I had never really known how much I wished to go to my home planet until now. And I could never do that.

"It blew up, went super nova, along with most of our people. Some were able to escape the calamity, and your father was one of the people who predicted its coming. You were no more than a few hours old when he and your mother made the preparations and sent you off, so that you might have a chance to live."

And to think my day was somewhat normal before Hera showed up. That was what did it. Yuda brought her hands back up to her temple and Hera came back, looking as angry as ever before she calmed down after a moment.

"Please, only think of me in Greek terms from now on. I don't like the schizophrenic battles I have to have in my mind when I'm around someone who knows me in a different form." She told me, glaring slightly. I gave her an apologetic look and focused on the little baby in my arms. It was a little girl, and she was asleep, peaceful and looking angelic with her soft ink black hair.

"What's her name? And what happened that she be given to me to look after?" I asked her, choosing to change the subject away from what just happened.

"Her name is Persephone Lesya Jackson. Though, it would be best to give her a nickname as she gets older. She isn't exactly safe from the rest of my family, the longer they are kept in the dark about her existence, the better chance she'll have at surviving." She told us. "The reason I took her here in the first place is because of what happened to her mother. She was just murdered in her home, and Sephie's father can't take care of her, it's in our laws that gods can't be there for their children very often, no how much they would like to."

I looked down at the girl, Persephone, and I saw someone like me, someone who was different.

"What do you mean 'better chance at surviving'?" Pop asked her.

"She's a demigoddess, the only demigoddess my brother has ever had. A princess of the seas. It isn't just the gods that exist, the monsters do as well." Hera said, and that shocked my parents. "The longer she lives in the dark about who she really is, the better chance she has of not running into those monsters. Demigods have potent and enticing scents to monsters, they smell like a meal, and children of my brothers smell only more so because of how powerful they are. The more powerful the demigod, the stronger their smell, the more monsters will work to kill them."

"Demigods have short life spans because of this, Demigods of the big three live even shorter lives."

"What do you mean, how short are their lives?!" I asked her, scared now for the baby girl in my arms. Hera gave me a sympathetic look before answering.

"On average, a Demigods life without training is 12 years." She told me.

"Okay, but you said that she was a princess of the sea, I can only assume you meant that her father is one of the big three, so how long of a life span for her specifically?"

Hera took a breath before answering. "Anywhere between 5 and 8 years. So either she will learn to fight and kill the monsters so she can live longer than that, or she will not make it very far in life. You can protect her, at least until she's able to fight the monsters on her own. It's best to wait until she's at least 7 for the training."

"There's no other place for her to be safe than with Clark?" Ma asked, purely curious. Hera though shook her head.

"There are numerous places. The Caldecot Tunnel in Oakland, California; Union Station in Indianapolis; Hotel Vallhala in Boston, Massachusetts; Russell Island in the southern most reaches of Canada; Long Island, New York; The Liberty Warehouse in Brooklyn, New York. But only the Union Station, Russell Island, and Long Island would be safe places, the others would have her killed because the other places belong to different Pantheons. Even then, it's best to raise her as human, like you did with Clark."

"Is there a particular reason why?" I asked, but I wasn't complaining. Honestly, I was excited at the prospect of being a Dad, even if it is way to early.

"The longer she has to be a child the better. She's fated to a Heroes life, that is not something one would very easily wish for another. Knowing who and what she is will increase her smell, and monsters will go after her at every chance they can get, you can make sure that they don't find her, the monsters of the Earthly Pantheons are afraid of you and those who are of Galactic Pantheons so they will leave her be as long as she is under your protection."

I looked at her then at Ma and Pop before deciding then and there. "I'll do my best to protect her."

With Hera giving me the adoption papers of Persephone, I filled out everything, putting myself into the 'Father' spot and also her mother's name where it should be. I changed her last name to Kent, and then gave her another middle name, so she was now Persephone Lesya Lara Kent. I know my birth mother's name now, I might as well give her tribute in my new daughter's name.

Yeah, so that was how my Thursday went. Got to leave school early, learned about the existence of gods and goddesses, was given answers about my home planet I didn't expect, and a daughter. I have to say, the last one was the best of them all.


	2. Symbols

_Clark: Age 21  
Percy/Sephie: Age 6_

_Clark's POV_

Okay, so maybe raising Sephie was harder than I thought. As soon as she started to run(Which happened before she walked), she wanted to go everywhere on the farm. She could never stay clean. I'm not going to lie here, when her first word was 'Gama', because she couldn't pronounce Grandma just yet, I was a little disappointed. Ma was happy though.

Right now, I was helping her with a print out of what fourth graders would be working on. I took her with me where I went travelling around, I knew that she would need to at least get some form of schooling. She learned quickly, she didn't need to be taught something twice once she finally understood it, so she was going simultaneously at a really fast and slow pace because she had dyslexia and ADHD, hence the fourth grade work rather than first grade work.

"Daddy, why do I have to do this?" She whined, breaking me from my thoughts and I looked over at her from the paper she wasn't doing. It was a three page packet of multiplication.

I just gave her a pointed look. "Sephie, it's either this page, or a review of everything we've done so far and an essay on the Founding Fathers of America. This is the easier of the two."

"I get that, but these are a lot of problems." Sephie grumbled and looked away from me with a pout on her face. I sighed and ran my hand down my face.

"Okay Sephie, what is this really about, because I know it isn't about the math." I said softly as I gently placed one of my hands on her shoulder.

"Why do we travel around so much, Daddy?" She whined to me. It was a question she asked a lot. "I can never make any friends, and I've been able to do school work that most kids my age would cry if they saw! Can't we just stay in a place for more than a few days?"

Well then, she won't be happy. I've gotten a trail in Egypt about activity that could have been done by my ancestors or surviving members of my planet. I sighed again and looked at her in the eyes. "We'll be going to Egypt tomorrow, I could try to have us stay there for a month or two so I can get a little bit of money for something for you for Christmas. How does that sound, staying in Egypt for a while? You might be able to make a few friends there."

Sephie beamed. "D'you think that I would be able to? I know from that part of history lessons that they have a few strange traditions, d'you think we could try a few of their weird foods?" That got me chuckling. Yup, she was excited again.

"We might, we'll be staying a while, it only seems right that we'd get to try at least one of their foods, and I'm sure you'll be able to make a friend or two there. But you've got to get your math pages done first." I told her, giving a fake serious voice as I said the last sentence.

"'Kay!" Sephie said before going to the math problems on her page, quickly filling out any that she knew already and working out the ones she didn't with only a few questions on them. Like I said, she's a quick learner once she understands something.

When we arrived in Egypt, all Sephie wanted to do was explore the place. I didn't let her stray to far away from me, I wouldn't risk it, her getting hurt by a monster. But overall, on the way to the site, I think she had fun.

Surprisingly, when we got to the site, there were people there already, a man and a boy who appeared to be his son. He noticed us before I could stop us from getting any closer.

"Sir, this isn't a tourist site, those are back on the western side of the city." He told me, though he didn't sound very serious, more 'curious' would be a better word.

"I'm aware of that. I'm here on a research expedition about the land and its peoples from the past." I told him, sure in my words, making it clear to any other person that what I was saying was truth. It was technically a half-truth, I was here on a research expedition of if my people had been here or not. He saw Sephie, but didn't question it.

He nodded and then pointed out the best spots to search for things, and Sephie got to hang out with his son. Their names were Julius and Carter Kane, though I told them that we were Alexander and Lily Pace, there's always a different name used when meeting people we'd be around for a while. It really did take a long time to find what I was looking for.

After nearly three weeks, it wasn't even me who found anything. It was Carter and Sephie. She and Carter were working on a desert sand castle when I heard a sort of shattering sound deep in the ground and Sephie called out, "Daddy!" Carter yelled out Sephie's name with panick clear in his voice. When I looked over to them, Carter was freaking out and backing away as sand fell into the ground, like a sink hole.

I didn't hesitate, I ran over and jumped straight into the sink hole, I could hear the slide of Sephie going down further into the ground, but it also sounded hollow, so I knew there had to be some kind of cavern down there. When I got down there, I basically rolled out of a sand water fall.

Sephie was just on the other side, covered in sand, but she wasn't hurt other than a small cut on her forearm. I looked up from where we had fallen and saw a panel of broken and cracked glass. It looked recently broken, that the sand had the added weight of the kids was the reason. "Daddy..." I heard Sephie say and turned to her. She was just staring around us and when I looked around, I could see why.

The place we were in was made of metal, and every surface was covered in dust, but built with rounded edges. There were some things on the walls, different panels of metal and glass, each piece with different writings on them, though it was in a language that clearly wasn't Egyptian. A language that I could sort of understand.

I stood up and walked over to where Sephie was, scooped her up in my arms and then walked over to the walls to look at the panels. I could understand the characters, each and every one of them, I just couldn't understand what the strange words meant.

'Et obstetricante stercoris columbarum requirere plures materiae unum sustinebit et infantes ut salutis gratum' I just couldn't figure that out, how my brain had deciphered the letters. The other panels had similar things, and the one I was looking at had a lot more, but that was only one section on that panel. I held Sephie in one of my arms and brought my hand up and touched the panel.

This wasn't one of those Indiana Jones movies though, so nothing happened but the dust getting wiped away. The characters were definitely interesting, even if I couldn't understand how they were put together.

I lift up the panel and it doesn't give any resistance as it comes off of the wall.

"Daddy, what are you doing?" Sephie asked me with curiosity. I just looked at her and smiled slightly.

"We can't stay in here long enough to understand what these say, so we're going to take them with us." I explained to her. "Besides, this way, we can learn about what this place is." I told her as I continued to go along the wall and take the panels. Then I looked over to the now slowly falling sand which was almost to the roof of this place in its widespread pile.

"I'm going to need you to close your eyes and mouth as tight as you can and hold your nose shut until we reach the surface. Think you can do that?" I asked her, getting a determined smile and a thumbs up before Sephie did as I told her to do. So, using my strength, I jumped right out of the hole in the roof, careful not to aggravate the cut on Sephie's arm too much.

When the two of us suddenly burst through the sand, I'm positive that I heard Carter yelp and Julius step back a little. Sephie started coughing slightly from holding her breath and I just dragged both of us and the panels away from the sink hole.

"Oh, worst tourist trap ever. They didn't even have a proper gift shop." I said as I worked on standing up. Julius was curious about the panels, especially once he saw that they were covered in symbols that weren't Egyptian. I was the one who got to keep those.

It was another two weeks when I finally found something that I could understand. Coordinates. Coordinates in a remote place in the Arctic. So I told Sephie about it, and she was fine with it. Carter had to go to, but they both promised each other that if we ran into them again, that they would hang out more.

When we ended up on a fishing ship for work to get there, the men working there were a bit skeptical at first about Sephie being there. But she was a natural when it came to fishing, even helped them set up their nets better to catch more fish. So they let her on as a sort of fishing apprentice. There was a storm, and that was when I heard it on the radio.

A berg was struck by lighting and the oil tanks had exploded, sending fire to the whole thing. I looked over in the direction I knew it was before not a second later, I was tackled out of the way of falling equipment. The man who did yelled at me and told me to watch what was going on around me before him and the others went to see what was on the radio transmission. But I knew.

I went to Sephie, picked her up, and after I got a nod from her, I jumped as far in the direction of the berg as I could.


End file.
